Friday, September 25, 2009

In the age of motivational speakers and self-help books, it would seem but natural when phrases like “decisive leadership”, “walking the talk”, “visionary leadership”, “seven habits of highly successful people” pervade our conversations .And not just in academic courses like MBA where leadership styles will be examined in great depth, these phrases will find a welcoming home even in informal chats .Is this truly the Age of Every Man is a Leader? Did Alice finally figure out all the philosophical challenges put forth in the Wonderland, emerge unscathed and ready to take the boardroom by storm? Does every person who speaks marketing glib talk have it in her to take the Fortune 500 company in crisis to greater heights? Let us walk on the path of examining this phenomenon of the leader being one from a million to now a concept where the leadership skills have become talking points for the masses.

The early leader was a military genius: he could lead a battalion under testing conditions and bring greater glory to the king. The king was of course a “natural” leader: the DNA route for leadership was, it seems; forever fixed. The nobility was looked forward to for leader-like qualities: noblesse oblige (“with wealth, power and prestige come responsibilities”), if you please. Royal poets wrote of battles and dilemmas facing the kings and queens: leadership was far away there away from the dusty plains and the plows, the stars of “decisive leadership” and “walking the talk” was left to the likes of Marcus Aurelius and Chandragupta Maurya.

Enter democracy and Industrial Revolution .While the explorer from older days who went to faraway lands to correct fallacies of earth being flat (only for 21st century to prove the geographically corrected notion into a digitally incorrect one) facing great challenges being heralded as a leader of sorts :nothing gave leadership skills being a mass-product available for review and practice than Industrial Revolution .Professional managers were called for , snap decisions called for and increasingly leadership skills passed on from what the royalty embodied to what the balance sheet champions said in their memoirs and answers to what journalists asked as “Kind sir, what is the secret of your success?” for the consumption of curious millions via newspapers and magazines.

Politicians, long battling a negative image did manage once in a while; by virtue of superior legislation (or PR skills) to enter the Leaders Hall of Fame. Spiritual leaders offered a whole different dimension and who re-defined success in far more holistic ways than mere success in a crisis situation or ability to gather monetary resources using least furrowing of the brow or expenditure of sweat.

Yes, the Age of every man as an aspiring Leader is here, and the footnote to this part of history will surely find a writer some more years down the line.